I got an AD&D DMG for christmas in 1985. I eventually acquired the PHB that had been given to another child...

I'm a relative latecomer, being introduced to the Mentzer Red Box in the summer of 1986.  From there I immediately jumped into Traveller, FASA Trek, Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers, Robotech, ElfQuest, RuneQuest, Star Wars D6, Palladium Fantasy... we played everything we could get our hands on.  D&D remained our first love, and we played AD&D 1e until 2e hit in '89.  MechWarrior was an early love that is with me still.  I could play from now till doomsday with nothing that wasn't published by TSR, GDW and FASA...

  That said, I have a lot of love for tons of less popular games, like Gangbusters, Chill, Ghostbusters, even really oddball stuff like Nightlife.

  I love gaming so much I hung my master's thesis on it and managed to get high marks.

Quote from: Géza Echs;858879My first game was either Bunnies & Burrows or Traveler. I can't remember which one was first, but I know I played both in fairly close succession.

Dennis Sustare is in our gaming club.  Having the author of Bunnies and Burrows and the creator of the Druid class for D&D in our group is pretty awesome - but it's also a bit intimidating when I'm doing a classroom on the history of the hobby and I keep looking at Dennis to make sure I'm getting it right...

Quote from: Durn;858540I told my group last night, 28years, which is longer than most of them have been dressing themselves.  I said, "It's an addiction but at least its not heroin."

Heh.  My own anecdote involves my mother -- and this, mind you, well after I'd moved out -- grousing about the money I spent on the hobby.  I retorted, "What, you'd rather I spent it all on beer like my younger brothers do?"

Not a peep out of her, then or subsequently.  :cool:

I started in 1978. I still have all my original 1E D&D books.

Quote from: Natasha;858396Something tells me I might be the youngest person on this site

Maybe, or maybe not. Depends on how old you were when you started, there are serious fluctuations there.

I've been playing for 16 years now, I think, and a lot of people here had started before I was born as well.

Too long for reason or sanity.

1976, Holmes Blue book, I still remember Dad asking what I was working so hard on.

Since 1986, so almost 30 years now...
Started out with "Oog des Meesters", the Dutch version of Das Schwarze Auge (DSA). Boy, what a lifechanger that has been!!!

The players/friends in my regular gaming group have either started out with me in '86, or they were introduced to roleplaying (by me or a friend) at a later date. Our 'youngest' addition is part of our group since 1995...we're all in our early forties now!

Started in 1982, with an awful DM and the french translation of the Red Box so... So 33 years of gaming and I hope 33 more to come.

I started back in 1990.  I played and really liked the SSI computer game "Buck Rogers XXVC: Countdown to Doomsday."  IIRC, there was a booklet in the computer game box with information about the tabletop game.  Well, the computer game sold me.  My best friend and I at the time went to a hobby store one weekend.  I bought the Buck Rogers XXVC RPG and a couple of supplements, he bought the Robotech RPG and a couple of its supplements.  Then another friend of mine introduced us to Villains & Vigilantes.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Started with Holmes Basic back in '79.  I was just a pup back then.

The year was 78 or 79 (I was 6 or 7), the game was D&D (cant recall what edition) and the older guys (like 14-15 years old) on my street was DM:s.
We never got to read the books but some of us kids made our own "rules" using one ordinary six-sided dice. The dungeons where graphpapers filled with a million rooms, pictures of monsters and traps, and numbers followed by "gp".

I started playing RPGs in 1978 while I was in 7th grade. Wargames the previous year maybe two years, my memory is a bit vague on that point.

I was walking home from the park during the summer when a friend that I had a falling out with saw me. He waved what I know know to be the White Box for OD&D and said he was going to play Dungeons & Dragons and I was not. I looked at him and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He said "I bet you don't know what it is even about.". I muttered of course I do and went home.

At some point I managed to get a Holmes Basic D&D set. At that point it had the classic set of dice and Module B1.  I took it over to a friend who I played a lot of wargames with and we figured it out. He was the dungeon master first and I created a magic-users. I went down the stairs into the Porttown Dungeon, took a right into the room of skeletons, and got attacked.

I used my one magic-missile which didn't down my target. They hit me hard and I elected to parry (there is a parry rule in Holmes). But realized that was a dumb ass move as while I had a better AC they would get a free attack if I dropped it. Wracked with indecision I died within two rounds.

Despite my character's death I was hooked from that point.

We were disappointed that Holmes stopped at 3rd level and wanted more. Unfortunately as much as my friend and I were into wargames we were only in 7th and 6th grade and didn't quite get how to design wargames in order to extrapolate the numbers. Nor did we realize that Holmes built on a previous version of D&D, this was pre-internet.

It was at Boy Scouts where i learned of Advanced Dungeon & Dragons. Winter campouts typically wound down at 7  so there was a couple of hours and at that time D&D was all the rage. So I went back to my wargame buddy and we agreed to split the cost of a AD&D Player's Handbox. We rolled dice and took it home. After an hour I called him and told him the bad news that the all-important to-hit charts were not in there.

However I found State Street Model and learned that the Dungeon Master Guide was due to be released. I kept pestering them every week and then got my Dad to specifically drive me down there to get it. He had to do a lot of errands but I didn't mind as I was spent the whole afternoon in the car reading it.

After that AD&D and tabletop RPGs dominated my gaming.

The main reason it appeared to me was is that I loved the appendices in Tolkien's Return of the King (as well as real life history).  I played around with my own maps and histories but in the end it was a bit flat because what would I do with the stuff I created. Due to my hearing loss I had difficulties with anything involving writing language so making up stories wasn't easy for me. But AD&D was perfect in turning my worldbuilding interests into something useful.

I still have a copy of the original map I made. A minor regret is that I lost the complete breakdown I drew on graph paper with quarter inch squares. There was something like 24 letter sized sheets forming a 4 by 6 grid. Not quite as impressive as the Wilderlands but I was proud of it.

Some tidbits that I remember,

Creative Photocopying was an artform. Basically taking drawings and photocopies cutting them apart, pasting them back together into a new map or playaid.

Hand typing in software programs from Dragon Magazine. One for generating buildings in a town I used a lot. Printed out on a dot matrix printer hooked up to a TRS-80 Model I.

Playing a session of D&D by firelight at Boy Scouts in a cabin perched on the edge of a cliff along Lake Erie in the middle of a ice storm.

Remembering the default mode of play in my hometown for junior and senior kids was to hop from campaign to campaign with their character. At the time I viewed it as a pain in the ass for the games I ran.

The student center at the local college had these awesome octagon tables to game with. By and large we were able to use them although security would chase us out now and again.

Toting a crate full of gaming stuff on a bicycle.

Walking a mile or two with a crate full of gaming stuff to get to a friend's house.

My crates of gaming stuff spilling out across the town square when the rear door of the old beater that was my first care flew open.

My house had a patio in the back with the floor consisting of rough paving stones embedded into concrete with about an inch gap between stones. One time I used that as a huge cavern dungeon. My mom didn't appreciate it.

Since 1980. A new friend invited me to play and I had no idea what D&D was or what to expect. They hand me a sheet of paper and tell me we're in a ruined city in a jungle. We're going to explore a step pyramid. The DM describes a hole in the ground where part of the structure has collapsed, and my new friends announce that they're preparing ropes, torches and lanterns.

I was like, "Whoa!" And I've been playing ever since.

In a couple months, I'll be meeting the DM and one of those other "new friends" in South Beach to celebrate his fiftieth birthday.